According to the GO, the number of steps followed during the promotion process has been reduced from four levels to three even though government officials are still recruited through the agency. The rules related to appointments and promotions of government servants are governed by the Tamil Nadu Government Servants (Condition of Service) Act, 2016, where, initially, all promotion related proposals were referred to TNPSC for its recommendation.

The promotion committee consisted of a Chairman, who was a member of TNPSC, a Convenor who was the Secretary of the department concerned and two members, one from the head of the department mostly at district levels and another from the Department of Personal and Administrative Reforms (P&AR). However, there were complaints that the promotion procedure was time consuming, particularly the referrals to TNPSC. Also, the purpose of formation of departmental promotion committee was defeated as all the promotions were referred to TNPSC. Thus, the new GO stated, “To avoid repetition of scrutiny of panel proposals as now being done at four levels and in order to restructure the procedure of Departmental Promotion Committee in line with the procedure followed by the Centre and other states, it is ordered to simplify the Departmental Promotion Committee.” The promotion proposals would now be placed before the newly constituted departmental promotion committee under the chairmanship of Secretary of the department to which the official waiting for promotion belongs to.